from what we've heard tonight it sounds like right is right. >> fox news, election alert, shepherd smith in new york but you're looking live in chicago at obama campaign headquarters. it's 11:00 in chicago. and the faithful will wait to hear from the current and next president of the united states, barack obama. the different scenes at romney headquarters in boston. we've been informed that -- we've been informed that mitt romney has not yet left his suite and there was some words from inside the romney camp earlier, that they were a bit upset that this thing had been

called early. early by their estimation. as they thought some of the more rural counties and in a couple of the states should be counted before networks called this but this election is over and barack obama is the next president of be hearing from governor romney in a moment. how did -- president obama get to this point? we've talked a lot about the strategy but let's look at it t we the numbers and for tha turn to the billboard. our man. >> you remember what the obama team has told us now for weeks. they talked about a fire wall in the midwest. okay? let's see what they were talking about. how they went about this on the maps behind us now. they talked about three critical states and have for several weeks. ohio, wisconsin, and iowa. that was the so-called blue fire wall that was set up here to stop any momentum that mitt romney may get out of florida or virginia or even possibly ohio. but tonight, take iowa, for

example, this is a state by five points at the moment. 80% reporting, barack obama has the lead. that state has been called. similar story up here in wisconsin. what a huge disappointment this is to republicans, too, when you have paul ryan on the card, a popular republican governor in scott walker, trolling for votes in the state of wisconsin. whoa, that's not the kind of thing we're looking for around here tonight. if you can switch it back, do it, just take us back to the touch-screen here. >> you don't hate twitter, do you? >> i'm not a tweet hater. i tell you what, shepherd, i have been to ohio twice in the past eight days and i do believe one of the stories that will be written about this re-election is how when barack obama won ohio in 2008, he did not leave the state. the field offices were still there. he still had paid staffers on the ground. he still worked to try and figure out how to the votes you get in 2008, and

where you go in that state to find others. that ground game. that ground operation that he learned on the south side of chicago and illinois, some 20 years ago, might in the end be the story that you talk about in places like ohio when it's all over. >> thanks very much. we might also talk about how the economy has improved. unemployment has been down in so many of the swing states. how even with the national unemployment rate at 7.8%, republicans could not figure out how to take him down. with us, our panel is with us, the national campaign director for the reagan-bush campaign in 1984. a fox news contributor, at the moment he doesn't have a camera on him. >> we've seen you all night. >> i'm still the fat ole man that i was. >> that's the farthermost thing from the truth on planet earth. maryanne is with us, a former adviser to senator john kerry. stoddard, associate editor and columnist for a major newspaper.

there are big picture thoughts to come in the future. right now what we're waiting for is a concession speech from mitt romney, which has not yet happen and then an acceptance speech from president obama. i know some big picture thinking has to be going on inside conservative circles. i have heard from rich lowry who thinks the way to go is to the right. i've heard from davis brinkley thinks the way to go is to the right. he was called. mitt romney was called by none other than newt gingrich, the massachusetts moderate. he's had many different positions on many issues over time, when you're running to be the governor of massachusetts, you have one position. when you're running in the presidential primary and the republican party, you have another position. and then when you're running for the presidency, you have another position. and i wonder if maybe is it time to find somebody who has a position. >> flip-floppers don't fairw--

very well. romney really shockingly actually gave a speech at the virginia military institute in which he said that we might need to push back the 2014 trend line for withdrawing from afghanistan, which he said he supported, but depending on assessments -- >> there is a war in afghanistan? >> you didn't hear much about that. >> what happened to the supreme hange immigration climate c and the fiscal cliff, that's just part of the list that we never talked about on the campaign. two weeks later on october 22, literally to the day, in his final debate with president obama he took president obama's position and said training -- 14 months and we'll be out of there. that made conservatives not trust him but it might have made swing voters skeptical of partisans, disgusted with polarization and gridlock worry about someone who had taken a

few positions. but i think that that -- the conservatives are really remembering -- remember, ann coulter said nominate mitt romney and the republicans will lose. the worst republican to go against president obama is mitt romney. this guy is going to be a punching bag before tomorrow morning. >> i've just gotten an alert from carl cameron. it's five minutes past midnight on the east coast. this election was called 40 minutes ago by us. and longer than that ago by other networks. and there is no word of a concession call from mitt romney to the president and there is no word of a concession speech in the works. he's not conceded. maybe he sees something in campaign data that no one else on the planet earth sees. >> i think it's very unfortunate. i think he has an opportunity to go out. he ran a great campaign, despite losing, he ran a great campaign. he became a better campaigner as

time goes on. he was depicted in an unfair way throughout the campaign. he's an honorable man and he ought to end this with great style and class and i think he will. i think they are shocked. they were so convinced they were going to win this thing, you usually know one way or the other. in this particular case, obviously, coming in with no concession speech is not something you do. and i'm sure they are scrambling trying to put something together but you ought to go up and talk -- he ought to go up and talk from his heart. basically try and help this president move forward >> is it possible that at the beginning of this day, they didn't realize it's a real uphill battle to win this. >> i don't think so. i've been talking -- tonight on the show, they were still convinced they were going to win this thing. >> why? >> their model is a different model. obviously -- >> their nation is a different nation. they are convinced that african-americans are going to vote in smaller numbers, that

women are going to vote in smaller numbers, minority will vote in smaller numbers. what in the world would possess them to think such a thing? that's not the trend of this nation. >> they looked at polls that had them dead even in the race against an i ncumbent president. once again, there is always the ability to underestimate your opposition and these guys ran the most brilliant campaign have i ever seen four years ago and i would have basically said every single day learning what they did and everything they did i would try and duplicate. and exceed and they didn't do that. >> as close as it is, as close as this race is and frankly mitt romney is still winning the popular vote by about 200,000, we're a divided nation, no one doubts that. but as close as the numbers are together, the sentiments are as far apart. you can put a conservative and a liberal in the room together and each thinks that the other is

destroying the nation. it has not been like this before. has it? >> no. it seems when this started was with the recount in 2000. things seem to have gotten -- each presidential cycle worse and worse. hopefully, i would like to see governor romney end the evening in the way that i think he's capable of with a very gracious concession speech. allow the president to make his speech and let's all get to the business of fixing this country. again, that's what people are really looking for. just as conventional wisdom had to get thrown out the window and how we look at politics and how you win presidential campaigns and how many of these states look different, we need to start putting aside all of our differences and really get down to fixing this country. >> this is a fox news election alert. fox news has just confirmed and decided in the state of colorado, colorado goes to president obama, we've just

called this. this was another of the battleground states. to date, or to this moment at least, mitt romney has won one, obama has won seven of the battleground states. and let's look at the electoral vote total. the electoral total is now barack obama 290, mitt romney, 203. we're waiting for a concession speech. [ birds chirping ] are you sure you can fit in there? [ chuckles ] ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] around view monitor with bird's-eye view.

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i like to win. you like to whine. vo: buy any samsung galaxy handset, get up to $100 off a second galaxy handset of the same or lesser price. exclusively at at&t. >> again, colorado is the latest of the battleground states, with the fox news decision desk has just come forward with. 73% of the vote in, in the rocky mountain state and barack obama will get the delegates from colorado. only two battleground states yet to be called and those are the states of virginia and florida. let's get to our correspondents in each of those states. steve, are they still in line in

miami-dade county? >> shep, as of a few minutes ago, they were, not only in miami-dade county but also in orange county along the i-4 corridor. so you have the unusual situation in this presidential election of races being called and people still in line to vote. still in line in miami-dade. more than five hours after lining up. at least five hours. probably several more hours as well. polls closed at 7:00 p.m. but the people in line at 7:00 were allowed to vote and it became an endurance test for those people, really hanging on. the battle itself in florida was expected to focus on this i-4 corridor and that's exactly what it did. governor romney winning several counties along the i-4 and president obama winning several including hillsboro county. a county which keeps its almost perfect record intact of going for every presidential winner except one since 1960. >> we'll check back in with you when we're able to call florida. mike emanuel is in richmond,

virginia. who knew? >> yeah, shep. they thought this might be one of the early calls of the evening of the battleground states. the polls closed at 7:00 eastern time and here we are five hours later and we do not have a winner of the commonwealth of virginia. 13 electoral votes at stake the romney-ryan team invested a lot of time and resources here. governor romney made two visits here on election eve. congressman ryan spent the afternoon of the election in the richmond area. recognizing that if they lost virginia, they may not have any possible opportunity to get to 270 electoral votes. crowds were huge. we heard reports of people waiting in line three or four hours to vote, and the bottom line was, virginia election officials said they were not going to call the race with people still in line. so they are going to give they will a chance to cast their ballots and let the process go forward even hours after the polls have officially closed, and then ultimately call the

race but bottom line, polls were always extremely close here and officials here recognized it would be close to the very end. record turnout was called for today about four million voters expected to turn out. so it's been a tough one to call. here we are, the party may be over, but we're still here. >> it makes sense, though, mike. you go through this process, virginians have endured all of these political ads, all of these robocalls, all of this attention and then you get to vote ne and you can't before the polls close. and then you can't vote before they call your state. that would be wrong. that sounds almost unamerican so they haven't called the state yet. who the heck really cares. the presidency is decided, your local races will get decided and then down in the state of florida, i mean, they have created a ballot that's, i can't stretch that far, it's nine pages, in some cases in early voting, it took between 20 minutes and an hour just to read the thing, so there were lines in miami-dade, lines in tampa,

lines in orlando, florida isn't yet called either. >> so looking at the exit polling to try to figure out, was what we thought going on actually going on? the question was, is it all about the economy? what have we learned? >> i think in the end, shep, it really is. when you go back and look at the themes that emerged from the exit polls one of them is, there was a very narrow gap in the end between romney and president obama on the economy. basically, an area where romney was supposed to have this huge advantage all the way through, who do you trust to better handle the economy? they are neck and neck. who do you trust to handle the federal budget deficit? they are neck and neck there as well. my mind goes back to what may become a pivotal moment in the race, when you look back at some of the turning points at least. bill clinton standing on that stage and saying at the democratic national convention, no president, not even me, he said, could have fixed this in four years. i think perhaps in that moment, he released any anxious democrats out there and sort of

relieved them of any fears they might have had, that it was okay to go ahead and support president obama again for another four years that no one could have fixed it and he should be given another four years. looking back, you know, i seems like that may have been the beginning of the changing of how people looked at president obama's ability to sort of handle and turn around the economy in a second four years. >> i remember on that night, pundits on both sides of the aisle said somebody just spoke to the american people like adults. tried to give them an idea of how big the problem is. for the first time, i think brit hume is one of the ones who said that. >> it's interesting, and you look also, the other thing that really emerges is likability. they did a very effective job, as said earlier, of defining mitt romney early on and you look back at when people decided their vote. most people decided before september so a lot of them, it

was baked in the cake. negative advertising about romney. he felt he was inaccurately defined but it looks like it didn't matter. people decided that they kind of liked president obama more than they liked mitt romney. in the end that's who they decided they want to spend another four years left. >> i know you're not suggesting it was all about likability but that's a factor in every election. >> you have -- do you want to sit down and have a beer with a guy. mitt romney would be the first person to point out he won't have that beer with you, but i think that that ends up being a huge factor. also, women and romney bent over backwards to convince the american public that her husband was a guy who was very sensitive and open to working with women, which his record absolutely suggests he is. i thought it was interesting it was never brought up that he ran his mother's campaign for the senate. this is a man who likes to see women in very strong roles in his life. and romney, you know, absolutely is his partner in politics and

in life. that was never communicated effectively in terms of women as well, and i think it falls into the sort of larger issue of who is better for the middle class and that spoke to women, i think, in larger numbers at least across the country. >> and whether they liked it or not, he was effectively painted as the rich guy he is. >> he was. unfortunately, in an environment where people are very concerned about their own economic situation, you know, i'm not saying he was the wrong candidate, he won this fair and square in the nomination process. >> beat them up and beat them back and beat them down. >> he ran twice for the office and he still may end up with the popular vote. i'm not sure but at the end of the day he has nothing to be ashamed of. it's tough to beat an incumbent president and this president in his campaign ran a brilliant campaign. we need to step back and examine what we did wrong and have a better outreach. my sense is the republican party wants to -- you have to play out a 10-year plan. how do we get women voters back.

how do we basically reach others. > newt gingrich called him a massachusetts moderate and made him the case for why he was a massachusetts moderate. he used his record in massachusetts, he once said that he would be to the left of ted kennedy on issues of gay rights. he was once pro-choice. and in a very big way. a lot of his positions have changed over time. you wonder if republicans don't have to o decide if they want t moderate that he is or the rick on the m or someone over right. >> i worked for a president who 28 years ago today won 49 states and four years before he ran for governor he had been a democrat. >> voted four times for fdr, was very proud of it. he's now the hero of our party, ronald reagan. at least conversion was okay and i think seeing problems and trying to solve problems is what this thing is all about. >> i just want to say, i don't want to be a downer here again, but i really think it's stunning

that president obama was able to -- inbattleground states employment unemployment was on the decrease. the auto bail-out rescued his re-election but i've got to say he did not really run on an agenda for a second term. he didn't really give a full defense of his own record

>> a top priority in the measure squeaked through the general assembly in february after he signed the legislation into law they got it and here are the votes thus far. it is being called an approval. a yes to question 6. just a short time ago as well i received a statement from governor martin o mall lee's office. maryland joined together to affirm for free and diverse people, a people committed to religious freedom the way is found for greater respect and human dignity of all. let me go to another important

question yapd voters face. gaming expansion. this one has not been called. at stake is whether the casinos can offer table games like blackjack and roulette. this is one that prince george's county had to vote on. it has not been called. if it changes i'll receive word. with 94% of the precincts reporting 52% support gaming expansion, including that casino in prince george 's county. also on question 4 another big one. this one has been called. this is whether illegal immigrants can pay in state tuition. also known as the dream act. a yes vote ratifies a state law called the dream act making some undocumented students eligible for in state tuition rates at state universities. basically it would apply to youngsters whose families have paid state income tax and applied for green cards to

remain in the u.s. legally and no criminal records and who first graduate from a maryland community college. voters have approved this one as well. three key issues. the big headline moments ago the gay marriage act has been affirmed by maryland voters. >> thank you very much. we certainly appreciate it and appreciate you staying with us all night as we continue in our coverage of all the local races in our area and the national races as well. >> our coverage continues late night on www.myfoxdc.com. in the meantime we'll return you to fox news channel programming.

>> our coverage continues tonight. the big thing that everybody is talking about. president barack obama has been reelected now. he becomes the 44 again. >> yeah, he stays 44. >> so is it 44.2 is what we're

calling it? as we continue looking at this tonight, the numbers, the number i'm paying attention to the most right now is the time. it is now 12:25 and we had talked earlier this evening. boy, let's get the coffee ready and it will be this long late night. how did we reach the point where we are now talking about this election in the past tense when we were fully expecting ohio to go late into the night and still don't quite know what the situation is in virginia. now we have a decision in this. >> i don't know how we can accurately, far be it from me to question the methodology from the projections but there are hundreds of thousands of ballots and ohio is close. all the networks have decided they know where the professional ballots are coming from and for that reason they're going to call it. virginia has also been called and even if you eliminate ohio,

virginia and florida, he's at 290 minus 18. he's still all right. so he, the president, even with those three big states going had enough other states so it was enough. i guess we didn't believe that would actually occur. the mid western fire wall, ohio, excuse me, wisconsin, iowa, colorado, nevada, minnesota and pennsylvania. all these states that were considered maybe possibly in play weren't in play. >> put on your hat for a minute here. what do we make of the fact that we're coming up on over an hour since the networks have called the race and we still haven't seen mitt romney emerge? >> you said it best to me. they are waiting for the ritual to play out.

which is that mitt romney, the defeated candidate makes a speech before his supporters and concedes. that was supposely preceded by a phone call from mitt romney to barack obama. maybe those things haven't happened. >> where we'll proceed is upstairs. >> thank you so much. mark, thank you, too. >> our coverage continues on www.myfoxdc.com. we'll send you back now to fox news channel programming. thanks for staying up late with us tonight. in battleground stakes that they're going to hold ohio. they can hold it but it's really looking tough. >> you can't win it at this point even if you have florida, virginia and north carolina. ohio's gone. you can't put the numbers together. done. game over. >> the reason that we wait for these things is because we the people who have been -- remember the primary campaign,

we the people were dragged along, if you're a republican, your favorite good got the dog beaten by the other guy and then he beat the dog out of the next guy and the dog out of the next guy. all right. we're all going to love each other. the romney people, the stan toe rum people, the gingrich people, i know i call ud your mother a bad name but let's defeat the president. what's supposed to happen in this great experience of the republic works the guy who lost said i know we fought, what matters is getting what the people want. i'm sorry we lost. we'll do better next time. thank you for your help. and then the president comes up and says, thank you for being so conciliatory and now we're going to all get together and solve the ginormous problem that the nation has. everybody's going to sleep now. and we haven't had that moment

now. and that's not fair. -- because we deserve that moment. we've listened to their advertisement. we've listened to their negative campaigning. we've listened to them call each other names. we need to get past that. and they need to help us. >> this is a fox news election alert. let's get straight to the obama headquarters where we're waiting for an acceptance speech. it's half past midnight on the east coast. half past what, 9:00, i guess on the west coast. we haven't had an acceptance speech because we haven't yet had a speech from bton. and we need a speech from boston which would be a concession speech from the romney campaign and as you can see, they're watching television in there. happens to be on cnn at the moment and waiting for their candidate to come out but the candidate hasn't called the white house or hasn't called

the president to concede. let's check in with our popular vote now. this is thethe electoral college llege vote. president obama at 290, governor romney at 203, race is over, with a couple of states left to call but would you look at this. this is popular vote. 49,419,033 votes for mitt romney. talk about a nation divided. let's check in now with henry ign from the obama campa headquarters in chicago. and carl cameron live from the governor romney headquarters in boston. carl, during the night, the last four minutes most of our stations have been away with their local races and now they have come back to us for national coverage. many of those local stations didn't hear that, as far as i know, thus far, there has been no call of concession, no concession speech. what is the holdup? >> well, we expect to be told immediately after that phone

call is made and have not been told, there has been a level of radio silence from romney's senior staffers and there is a good reason for it. they told me today that mitt romney only wrote one speech. an acceptance speech. so presumably, mr. romney, who said they say wrote his own acceptance speech is now editing, and he may well be getting help from staff rewriting and scrambling out something by way of a concession speech. that could take a little bit of time. there are some technical aspects of things. the type group of reporters that's traveled with mr. romney, when we the traveling press have not been able to get into certain closed events or smaller venues is waiting outside. parked out front. they have been there for about 15 minutes, they were told they could be waiting there for about 15 minutes to an hour. that may well be a signal that mr. romney is expected to make it to that podium behind me within 45 minutes or so. it would traditionally come after the concession speech.

the fact that this will run past midnight eastern time is not meant as a slight by the romney campaign or at least traditionally it's not. it's more about giving ample time for the voters to get used to what just happened on the republican side, and to do due diligence and opportunity for every last vote to be counted. it's a foregone conclusion that mr. obama has been reelected but there is an awful lot of soul searching and self-evaluation that the gop has to do in the face of a defeat. this is two times in a row that they have gone south to the democrat barack obama, first john mccain in 2008 and now mitt romney. there will be questions about what the republican agenda -- what the republican national committee platform should look like in the weeks and months ahead. there is a 2414 midterm ahead. there is an open presidential race four years from now. joe biden has said his political career and final campaign has not yet happened. there are lots of democrats who

have been sniffing around in iowa and new hampshire wondering whether or not they should spend a considerable amount of time there this upcoming calendar year, which is to say, thinking about a run in four years. now that romney who won't be president, all of those that weren't picked, rubio, christie, paul ryan, the running mate, all of them will be looking forward to an open seat four years from now. the question about a concession speech and its timing is part of it but that's in the immediate aftermath of the defeat. it will happen but it's probably going to be another 45 minutes or so. >> carl, it's my understanding that an hour 15 minutes ago the romney camp called -- made it clear that they thought the networks called this thing too early and they were frankly contesting it, i know, because i read that it happened over on the fox news channel. >> yeah, they disputed it. very early on they said, wait a

minute. hold on a second. ohio with only 75% of the vote in, it's just not fair, week after week, literally, since may of this year, very rarely did the polls venture even outside -- >> carl? -- [inaudible] >> why aren't they moving? this is not normal. this isn't what's happened in years past, is it? >> well, no, it's not what's happened in years past. but again, they are probably putting the finishing touches on a concession speech that's meant to be not only some sort of a baltimore for the sting of defeat but a reiteration of romney and given his demeanor throughout the campaign, it's likely that he'll be -- he'll attempt to be gracious in defeat. and talk about the country's future. its need to come together, to really tackle serious challenges facing the country and the

world, with an aggressive approach. he's been very critical of president obama. it unlikely he'll be critical in defeat. we'll see shortly. >> that's actually what we were expecting. we were just talking about this grand experiment and how what happens now, one says we lost, the other won, and they all come together. we're waiting for that moment. stay with us.

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available now. sc johnson.

>> 38 minutes past the hour. well, there is nothing left to decide n there are some issues here and there in local and state races. we still don't know about florida, we still don't know about the state of virginia, but we know who won. we're just waiting for a concession speech an acceptance speech so we can all come together and move forward like none of this happened. joining us, bill clinton and fox news contributor davis from the left and the editor of the conservative magazine national review rich lowry also a fox news contributor. what do you want to hear from mitt romney? he's a very gracious and decent man. that's what we'll hear. i thought, shep, when they said

earlier today, that he had written acceptance speech, that was bravado, but apparently he didn't write the concession speech. >> you don't want to give any indication that you think you might lose, that would be the dumbest thing in the world. >> that's the weird thing about politics now is so much of the debate itself is over who is going to win and who is going to lose. it felt like half of this debate, the whole time, was about the polls and which polls were right because everyone wants to project that confidence on the theory it will help your turnout and if you don't project that confidence your people won't be there. >> it's emblematic of the fact that so much of this campaign was devoid of the issues that really affect everyone. for instance, the healthcare, fiscal cliff, the war in afghanistan, on and on and on, they weren't top of mind. >> especially the war in afghanistan. neither of them wanted to talk about it at all. and i think in his heart, romney

has a disagreement with the president about it, but he didn't want to be explicit about it for fear of offending voters and especially women voters. >> million the last debate when he chose the president's position? >> yeah, basically, in the last debate, it will be one of the things that will be a should have, could have, would have, was he not aggressive enough in that last debate because clearly t e theory going in, i'm no going to argue with him about anything, or make any quick, threatening moves, i'll just try to play as soft as i can and i think that was an appeal to the women voters. >> i'm not going to send your kid off to war unless i have to. don't fear me, i'm not a boogieman. go ahead. >> there is a little bit of negativity here, that we have a 50-50 popular vote. >> we can put the popular vote out there. at one point, just to put an exclamation point on your point, 20 minutes ago the popular vote was separated by 322 votes.

>> i hear a lot in everyone's comments about the mistakes that romney made and the brilliant campaign that barack obama ran, and he did run a brilliant campaign for electoral votes but if you look at the map of the united states and the popular vote he should be humbled onight and say this is a divided country, this is no mandate. i now have to bring this country together, so i think there is a humility that should be heard from president obama, not a declaration about our brilliant campaign but a failure to move the needle from a 50-50 country in 2000, 12 years later, 100 million voters, 50-50. so where is the great failure of mitt romney and where is the great success of president obama, who i supported, he's got to bring this country together? >> from obama campaign headquarters, do we have a sense of what we will hear from the president tonight? >> a big challenge for him tonight because, as you mentioned, the closeness of this

race in terms of the popular vote and the fact that the house of represents say it's a state virtually unchanged. the senate stays in democratic hands a 50-50 government. a big challenge for the president because there is a fiscal miss waiting for him and -- mess waiting for him and congress and after the vote counting is over with but also a big opportunity when he finally takes the stage behind me to try to begin the healing process. trying to bring the country together and say, look, we've just fought it out. he's won. congress is basically staying unchanged. it's time to put the division aside and work together. republicans will have to show their willing to put some tactics on the table. the president might have to show he's willing to cut into medicare and other social entitlement and domestic programs that maybe he hasn't been willing to cut as much previously. both sides will have to give some here. also, it's interesting to me, that this race is basically not

changed since day one. since romney got the republican nomination. the obama camp has said again and again and again, the map is the map and the electoral math was not good for romney and he has to run the table on these battle grounds to win. the only big up with he won was north carolina. we still have florida and others to got. from the beginning he knew he would have to run the table. he did not and that's why he didn't win. >> thanks very much. lots to be talked about tonight. we'll go to the concession speech from mitt romney when that comes. president's the acceptance speech. if and when that comes. there is plenty of talk about what tomorrow will bring. tonight is about that it's 44 minutes past midnight on the east coast. i'm shepard smith in new york. fox network's continuing coverage as you have now decided 2012.

>> thanks for staying with fox 5's court coverage of collection day. >> we have one loose end to tie up local. table gaming across the rest of the state of maryland and it's been decided. >> let's go to will thomas with the details. >> talk about a loose end. we've been waiting for it and boy, was it close. we're talking about question 7. maryland voters have approved to expand gambling across the state and the provision that would have prince george's county voters approve it has approved.

it's all part of the same one. maryland question 7 approved with 94% of the precincts reporting. 52% for and 48% against. and we'll have more coverage on that. you can bet on fox 5 morning news. let's talk about another important issue. we broke into programming a short time ago. this is question 6, the same sex marriage question. they have approved question 6. they've joined six states in recognizing same sex marriage. local courts would begin issuing licenses to gay couples as early as january. one footnote. results in maryland and the other three states will be talked about nationally and here's why. the u.s. supreme court is likely to take up the issue of same sex marriage during this term. each side will site popular support like maryland. again proving question 6 in their arguments to the high court. finally let's talk about this one. another question that has been

approved by maryland voters. question 4. the question vote ratifies a state law called dream act that would make some undocumented students eligible for in state tuition rates at state universities. the washington post endorsed question 4 and described the legal limits as such. it would apply to youngsters whose family paid state income tax and applied for green cards and no criminal records and first graduate from a maryland community college. on the issue of question 6, same sex marriage, we can come back live here in the web center. we received a statement from governor martin o'malley and says in part as we've done so far in our state's history marylanders choose to come together to affirm the profound truth that's served as both the corner stone and the beacon of hope of our nation. that's the latest. sean and brian back to you. >> thanks for the update. if you've been watching our

national coverage mitt romney has yet to come to the stage. we're told he should be coming to the stage any minute to give his concession speech. >> keep it right here on fox 5. we're going to rejoin fox news coverage of election you decide 2012. have a great night. i would assume and presume, from the president of the united states, i haven't gotten word of a concession call yet to the president. but if history is our god it will happen. some new results are in on several of the referendums and initiatives. we'll get -- definitely get to all of these speeches. fear not but among the most notable, marijuana. trace is live in our west coast newsroom. lots of different measures on this matter across the country. >> yeah, a lot of measures dealing with marijuana. just to set the table. there are 17 states that currently have medical marijuana laws on the books and tonight three other states were trying to vote to see if they could join that list. the first one, of course, being massachusetts, and massachusetts

did pass their medical marijuana laws. pretty dominantly 63-37. arkansas went the other way. arkansas said no to medical marijuana. you can see the numbers there. 48-52. that one, thought it would be a bigger defeat than that. it wasn't. montana said yes to their medical marijuana law. you can see the numbers again, 59- 59-41. pretty dominant there. look at this. colorado becomes the first state in the country to legalize marijuana just to get high. i have to read this. this is from the governor who says the voters have spoken. we have to respect their will. this will be a complicated process but we intend to follow through. that said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don't break out the cheatos or goldfish right away.

oregon voted it down but take a look at this. in washington state they had bipartisan support even to two former u.s. federal prosecutors, supporting this, and it looks like now as if washington state will become the second state to legalize marijuana. it means if you're 21 years or older, you could have an ounce of pot and the states would actually regulate the growers as well as the retailers and could generate billions of dollars in taxes. i just want to get a couple of amendments off the books. florida, two very controversial amendments, first one deals with whether to opt out of obama care. it would have allowed florida not to be mandated to buy health insurance. as you can see there, they voted no. even if they voted yes it doesn't matter because the supreme court already ruled that obama care is constitutional, so the law would have had no teeth. amendment 6 would have prohibited tax dollars to be used to fund abortion.

currently florida does not use tax dollars to fund abortion, y here is it would have also excluded abortion from ery ida's privacy laws v strict privacy laws and the opponents said it was nothing more than an end game trying to get around making sure that minors do not get abortions without parental consent but the big news, colorado becomes the first state in the union to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. >> trace gallagher in los angeles tonight. thanks very much. i don't know. i mean, we've been hearing about this forever. so many people have said you can tax it, you can recollgulate it control it, all of a sudden, legal in colorado to use. that's weird. >> there is a big difference between team who support it for medical purposes versus legalization. it will be interesting to see whether this goes to other states and if so how many, based on that. >> mitt romney is now gotten

into the building there in boston and the concession speech is forthcoming. let's look at the two campaign headquarters side by side. i've been informed that that's what the producers wanted to do. life on the left-hand side of the screen there. that's obama's headquarters and life on the right-hand side of the screen there, that's romney headquarters, and an obama adviser has just informed us that governor romney did call president obama to concede a short time ago. the white house pool had reported that but we're waiting for confirmation on our own to make sure of that and sure enough, we're told now that governor romney called. i'm not sure about the timing but i can tell you this. 13 minutes ago, cbs news called the state of virginia for obama. we haven't done that and we're not making that call. but what i'm saying is, is that

it, that put him over the top on the concession or was he just writing the concession speech? i don't think it will much matter because this thing is over and he's going to step to the podium and concede in a couple of minutes from now. >> martha mccallum is with us from fox news. we've been looking at the exit polling. we've learned a lot. >> we also saw the flip in the national vote as well. in the past few minutes. it's become a much more decisive gulf between the two candidates in the national poll as well. when you look at this across the board, sheppard, i'll go back to what i said before, economy is what it boils down to and what happened, it appears, voters went to the polls and said we'll give president obama another chance the gulf that was supposed to exist because of mitt romney's experience as a businessman and turning around the olympics and all of those other very credible things on his resume did not add up in people's minds to the simple question of, do i want to stick with this guy or give this

guy a chance? when it came time to cross that bridge they decided that they wanted to stay where they were. it's because we see the balance of power staying static, it's a big question as to whether or not the president will be able to achieve any of that agenda given, you know what we see in the house of representatives. >> we'll find out over time but one thing we're sure of is the nation is as divided as ever. but in television, we play two different games. in television we play ratings game about all the people watching at one time, and that's one way to measure you. that's kind of like the popular vote. her game we play this ot that's about people between the ages of 25 and 54, and those are the only ones who matter. because that's what advertisers sell to. if you're younger than 25 in cable news you don't matter. older than 54, you don't matter. all that matters is 25 to 54. that's what you try to get. they were both trying to get the states, the demographics, they were trying to get the individual electoral votes

across 51 different individual contests, the 50 states and puerto rico and it would appear that's what happened and the romney campaign was not successful on that line. jerry willis says i'm going, i'm going, jerry willis is inside romney headquarters. how is it? >> starting to sing "god bless america." we're expecting mitt romney any second. the crowd is cheering. here he comes. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you, my friends. thank you so very much. thank you.

[applause] >> thank you. i have just called president obama to congratulate him on his victory. his supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. i wish all of them well. but particularly the president, the first lady, and their daughters. this is a time of great challenge for america and i pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation. [applause] >> i want to thank paul ryan for all that he's done for our campaign. [applause] >> and for our country. besides my wife ann, paul is the best choice have i ever made. [applause]

>> and i trust that his intellect and his hard work and his commitment to principle will continue to contribute to the good of our nation. [applause] >> i also want to thank ann, the love of my life. [applause] >> she would have been a wonderful first lady. she's -- she has been that and more to me and to our family. and to the many people that she's touched with her compassion and her care. i thank my sons for their tireless work on behalf of the campaign and thank their wives and children for taking up the slack as their husbands and dads have spent so many weeks away from home. [applause] >> i want to thank matt rhodes and the dedicated campaign team he led. [applause]

>> they have made an extraordinary effort, not just for me, but also for the country that we love. and to you here tonight and to the team across the country, the volunteers, the fundraisers, the donors, the surrogates, i don't believe that there has ever been an effort in our party that can compare with what you have done over these past years. thank you so very much. [applause] >> thanks for all the hours of work, for the calls, for the speeches, the appearances, for the resources, and for the prayers, you gave deeply from yourselves and performed magnificently. and you inspired us and you humbled us. you've been the very best you could have imagined. the nation, as you know, is at a critical point. at a time like this we can't risk partisan bickering. our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's

work and we citizens also have to rise to the occasion. with whether we're teachers or professors, we count on you not just to teach but to inspire our children with a passion for learning and discovery. we look to pastors, rabbis, to testify of the enduring principles upon which our society is built. honesty, charity, integrity and family. we look to our parents, from the final analysis, everything depend on the success of our homes. we look to job creators of all kinds. we're counting on you to invest. to hire. to step forward. and we look to democrats and republicans and government at all levels to put the people before the politics. i believe in america. i believe in the people of america. america. [applause]